I Woke Up Today, And You're On The Other Side
by Hudine
Summary: It was a normal day for Rose in her new job... well as normal as anything is in Torchwood, but soon, things are turned upside down all over again as she meets an alien that shouldn't exist. Can he help her get home to her Doctor?
1. Chapter 1 & 2

**TITLE:** I Woke Up Today, And You're On The Other Side  
**AUTHOR:** Hudine Wolfspirit  
**RATING:** PG for now.  
**PARING: **Rose/Ten  
**DISTRIBUTION:** Anyone that wants it  
**SPOILERS:** New Doctor Who, everything up until and including season 3  
**SUMMERY:** It was a normal day for Rose in her new job... well as normal as anything is in Torchwood, but soon, things are turned upside down all over again as she meets an alien that shouldn't exist. Can he help her get home to her Doctor? Ten/Rose, OC/Martha cliché reunion-fic with Bad Wolf, but with my own twist and the Doctor's past.  
**GENRE:** Action/adventure, Romance.  
**DISCLAIMER:** Without prejudice. The names of all characters contained behind the cut and Doctor Who are the property of the BBC. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. I am in no way affiliated with the BBC or the Doctor Who production team. To learn more about Doctor Who visit To Hudine at yahoo . co . uk and ICQ 59461891 or yahoo IM: Hudine  
**WARNINGS: Anyone so much as mentions the word "loom" and I'll probably ignore you, this doesn't follow book canon (although I did borrow the name "Lungbarrow"). It's my take on things based on other stuff said more recently that if you want to get into a debate about feel free to e-mail or IM me, I like a good Who discussion.  
NOTES: **Big thanks to my wonderful beta Immi :D

Song for Ten, by Murray Gold  
(Album Version)

_"Well I woke up today,  
And the world was a restless place  
It could have been that way, for me..  
And I wandered around,  
And I thought of your face  
That Christmas looking back, at me,  
whoa whoa whoa,  
I wish today was just like every other day.  
Cause today has been the best day,  
Everything I ever dreamed..._

And I started to walk,  
Pretty soon I will run,  
And I'll come running back to you.  
'Cause I followed my star,  
And that's what you are,  
I had a merry time with you.  
whoa whoa whoa whoa  
I wish today could be like every other day,  
Cause today has been the best day..  
Everything I ever dreamed.

So have a good life,  
Do it for me, make me so proud,  
Like you want me to be.  
Wherever you are, I'm thinking of you,  
Oceans apart,  
I want you to know,  
la la la laaaaa,  
la la la laaaaa,  
la la la laaaaa,  
yeah,

Well I woke up today,  
And your on the other side,  
Our time will never come again,  
But if you can still dream,  
Close your eyes and you'll see,  
That you can see me now and then.  
whoa whoa whoa whoa,  
I wish today was just like every other day,  
Cause today has been the best day,  
Everything I ever dreamed,  
I wish today was just like every other day,  
Cause today has been the best day  
Everything I ever dreamed...

I wish today was just like every other day  
Cause today has been the best day,  
Everything I ever dreamed  
I wish today was just like every other day,  
Cause today has been the best day,  
Everything I ever dreamed..."

**Chapter 1**

It was a normal day for Rose Tyler in her new life. Well, as normal as anything can be living in a parallel universe; working for a formerly evil organisation that polices extra terrestrial activity in the British Isles, and sometimes, because of prior arrangement, the Republic of Ireland. She rather likes the missions she's required for in the Belfast office, and loves to get going into the Republic of Ireland across the border from there. The Irish (or Northern Irish, or "British from Northern Ireland" as some prefer to be called) know how to have fun, and they do things differently to the rest of the world sometimes - though she won't even pretend to understand the politics or take sides on the conflict that goes on there.

But unfortunately this was one of those days when she was stuck in the London office, with just paper work on that joker from the Angoriana solar system who tried to sell exploding doorknobs to the public. He passed for human as long as he hid his extra leg, and the eye on the back of his head. He was harmless enough - just a dodgy con artist (which made her smile as she was reminded of another conman she met back in World War Two): he was given a warning, merchandise confiscated and sent on his way... as usual. This one was always showing up with something new, but she did get a rather nice sonic screwdriver off him not that long ago for a crate of HobNob biscuits. You'd be surprised how many encounters were silly little things like that (and it was surprising how well she could blag her way through intergalactic law from what she picked up on the job and from with the Doctor), but occasionally there was a real threat, someone trying to invade or take advantage with malice, and it was then that she was in her element. She was always of the first ones on the front line.

Rose walked into the building at Canary Warf, it was much the same as the one in her world; white and sterile mixed with chrome, and some light beech-wood furnishings with a few potted plants here and there (the usual green leafy ones that seem to appear in offices all over the galaxy). Going through the security scanners at the front door as she walked in, she clipped on her badge and greeted the guard at the door with a smile and a wave, who returned the gesture. She walked up to the front desk to sign in, and the girl at the desk came over to her,

"Morning Miss Tyler, I have a message for you from George Johnston from Special Division, he says to meet him in Section 6 as soon as you come in."

"Thanks Marie, this had better not be about another exploding doorknob; I've seen enough of those to last a lifetime," Rose remarked and made her way to the lifts. She waited for a free one, swiped her key card in the slot and pressed the button labelled 'Sub 6'. A light on the panel flashed green and the doors closed and moved downwards.

Special Division was the department she worked in. It dealt directly with aliens or humans with illegal alien tech, and Section 6 was the holding and interrogation cells they brought the more dangerous law-breakers to. She got out of the lift to see George waiting for her at the entrance to the holding area. He was a very tall man of almost seven feet, his frame was lanky and rather skinny, his shirts and trousers never seemed to quite reach the bottom of his arms or legs, he had huge feet that he needed to order special outsized shoes for, had a long neck and was often slumped over to fit into places. But despite this, he was oddly handsome with his light blond hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and skin dotted with freckles. He was always trying to get Rose to go out with him to begin with, but Rose just couldn't bring herself to move onto that final step even now. Even so, the two fell into an easy friendship over the six years.

Six years, thought Rose with a pang, six years since she'd told the Doctor how she felt about him on that beach in Norway. At first she had been devastated and went through the motions, but gradually she'd started to ease into this new life and now… well now, she rather enjoyed her job, her new friends, and her little brother who loved to listen to the stories she would tell him about her adventures with the Doctor. She was even able to look back fondly at their time together, and after all she could still dream, and if she closed her eyes she could see him now and then.

"This better not be Rast again, I swear. One more of his stupid things that don't work and I'll stick it up his--"

"No, he's gone. Tracked him leaving myself," George interrupted quickly.

"Good, 'cause I'm not in the mood to deal with that joker right now."

"Oh come on Rose, he only does it to get caught; 'cause he likes you."

"Not going to happen, and I wouldn't mind it so much if he did my paperwork for me too."

George had to smile, "That's what I like about you Rose: no matter how different the aliens are, you treat them so normally. Most of the people that work here just don't get that connection; it's why you are our best agent. I have to admit, if one of the ETs looked at me like Rast looks at you I'd probably go running... they still freak me out sometimes."

Rose smiled and gave a small giggle, "I'm still not going to go out with you George, but keep up the flattery as much as you like. It's nice for a girl to be reminded she's appreciated now and then." She looked at him with her tongue between her teeth, then sobering up she stated, "And how many times do I have to tell people they may not be from this planet but they are all people too. Imagine if you were on a strange planet and you were the one that was different? Besides, my best friend's an alien."

"Really? I didn't know Ricky was an alien... Would explain a thing or two though..."

Rose let out a full-on laugh as she was reminded of her first Doctor and how he'd used to wind up Mickey, "You know what I mean."

"Oh yes this mysterious Doctor that you talk of that I'm not supposed to know about," George teased, as Rose had told him about the Doctor. He was one of the few that knew her story and how she was from another Earth. She'd told him after she'd known him a good four years and even then it took wearing her down with questions, and he'd had to prove that he could be trusted, but he solemnly swore then not to tell anyone, and especially not Torchwood.

"So why am I here then?"

"Well we found this guy on our alien tech storage floor. We've never seen his species before; he looks human but isn't, he claims to be a tourist just got a little lost - as if - but get this: he was on the floor and there're no records of him entering the building! Not even on CCTV! It's as if he just appeared here. So this is right up your street this sort of thing, and I know you love a mystery."

"Transmat?"

"Checked. There's nothing wrong with the anti-transmat field over the building or on that floor."

"Probably something that we've not seen that our shields don't work for. We'll have to consult R&D on that."

"Here's the inventory of what we found on him," George commented and gestured to a rather large pile of objects in the hidden room beside the holding cell as they walked in.

Rose was in awe at the sheer number of things, "He carries all that with him?"

"Yeah and get this - it was all in his pockets!"

Rose picked up a round object that looked sort of like a crystal ball; only amber in colour and that was around the size of an average watermelon, "This was in his pocket?"

"Yeah, and God knows how he got it in there cause they weren't exactly bulging."

Rose looked through the rest of the stuff: a ball of string, a yo-yo, a Rubik's cube, a laser wrench, parcel tape, several small bags, a leather wallet, a nasal spray, coins belonging to different planets, regions of planets and what looked like a sixpence. There were also tools like the ones the Doctor used on the TARDIS when on the rare occasion the sonic screwdriver couldn't do the job, as well as other assorted junk she couldn't go into naming right now. Also, amongst the coins was one with a seal on it with a pattern that she recognised; it was all over the TARDIS, and on the other side was writing that was made from shapes like most Gallifreyan letters. "Doctor..." Rose murmured under her breath.

She looked to the one-way glass and for the first time seen the man she was supposed to interrogate. He looked a bit like the Doctor she knew last, tall wiry frame, brown unruly hair that was perhaps a bit longer than her Doctor's, freckles, small amount of stubble, and his eyes were the most intense blue like her first doctor; they seemed to be able to look through the one-way glass and were gazing intently at her as if inspecting her like she was him. Instead of a pin-striped suit he wore a pair of distressed red camouflage combat jeans, a matching military fatigue type jacket with more Gallifreyan symbols on the shoulders and on one of the front pockets, a white t-shirt, as well as scuffed up orange combat boots. She wanted to believe it was him, but it wasn't, she could just tell. It was the aura that radiated off him, familiar but not. She always could feel the Doctor even when he regenerated. He may have looked different but that feeling was still the same.

"Rose," George was now waving his hand in front of her, "Earth calling Rose."

Rose snapped out of her trance-like state and broke eye contact with the man in the room. "Huh? Sorry I think I was a universe away there," she joked but knew she wasn't far from the truth.

"I said good luck with him - we can't even get his name. I'm gonna go type up that report from your alien friend yesterday. Will only be down the hall a bit, gonna use one of those offices so I'm not far away in case the alarm sounds."

"Okay, thanks, George," Rose replied and watched as he left. Taking a deep breath, she strode over to the entrance of the holding cell, checked her panic button, then walked in and sat down at the other side of the table.

"You don't belong here," he stated simply looking at Rose.

"Dunno what you're talking about," Rose replied, folding her arms and looking at him.

"I think you do," he insisted. "I can sense it, the way time flows around you, you have golden strands of the Time Vortex inside you, but not this time vortex... it's parallel... But how? And your soul… Your soul is merged..." his eyes widened and he looked her up and down, "Doctor... he's alive... the Doctor you're mated to him... Well that explains one part... Now why have you got--"

"Hang on, what about the Doctor? What do you want, who are you? And what do you mean "mated"?"

The man grinned at her in a way that looked oddly familiar. "That's who you thought I was at first, isn't it? And I bet he didn't tell you. Rassilon, this is good fun, he's in so much trouble! But at least it will only be with you this time! Don't worry, it couldn't have happened unless both parties wanted it to, but I can't believe you don't remember getting married, the whole soul sharing and all."

"Soul sharing? Married?? What are you on about? I'm not married!"

"Oh yes you are, according to Time Lord law, and law in a lot of places, you are," he chuckled, "Oh you've gone and done it now, Doctor. Bet he didn't expect that to happen, but why in Time and Space would he transfer energy unless it has something to do with...?" He stopped rambling and looked at her, _really_ looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. "Bad Wolf... you're the Bad Wolf."

That did catch her attention amongst all of the information and questions flowing through her head. "Huh? What's Bad Wolf?" Rose tried to brush it off, a little unsettled.

"I think you do know, but it's only a legend of my people..."

"Which would be?"

"Time Lord, weren't you listening?"

"The Time Lords are all gone, the Doctor said he was the last."

"Ironic that, but no, obviously not since I'm here." He looked into her eyes, "I thought I was the last. I got pulled into this universe and unable to cross back, my TARDIS doesn't work properly, and I've been looking for a way back because this place just doesn't feel right, it makes me nervous. First time I found a crack I couldn't get to it, then there was a massive rift and I got mixed up in events, and I didn't dare cross over then. I couldn't go back, or else risk collapsing both realities or worse. Then I found this anomaly… something of my universe, so I came, and instead of a crack or rift… I found you."

"Sorry to disappoint you then," Rose said, still trying to take everything in.

"Not disappointed at all, just the opposite in fact - you are the Bad Wolf after all. So my wolf-y friend, since you have the Time Vortex in you from our universe, you should be able to help, and that's without mentioning your connection to the Doctor – that should pinpoint the right reality. I mean I can do it now I know he's alive, but you! You have a piece of his soul residing in you just as he has a part of yours and the two will look for each other with the right stimulation. It's just brilliant!" He was jumping about like an over-excited child now, with a light in his eyes that was oddly like that of the Doctor's.

"What are you on about, I don't have part of his soul... do I? And even so what do you know about Bad Wolf, I've not got it anymore."

"The Bad Wolf is an old legend, never thought it was true until we met. It's about a young human woman, this human falls for a lonely stranger and the stranger falls in love with her. The stranger had been in a War, a War to end all wars, and was left alone in the universe, emotionally scarred and guilt-ridden from being the sole survivor and he wants to die. Then he meets the young lady and she shows him life is worth living again, while he shows her things she never before dreamed of. They travel together going and seeing things until the stranger finds out the War he thought was over wasn't over after all, and to protect her he sends her away back home where he believes she will be safe. However the lady isn't happy about this; she wants to be with her man; to save him from certain death, but to do so she has to ask for help from the glowing light who takes her and the Bad Wolf is born. The Bad Wolf arrives at the battlefield glowing in swirling golden light like the most beautiful angel, she can now see everything that ever was, will or could be; and takes the words Bad Wolf and scatters them throughout time and space as a message for herself, she scatters the enemy into dust with a wave of her hand, but the light is too much for her, the lonely stranger draws the light into himself with a kiss merging their souls, and puts the light back where it belongs, but still some of the light remains renewing and extending life for an age. The stranger, who was unprepared, dies in the process, but his life is renewed and is healed feeling freer than before and they continue to fight the evils: warriors of the light."

"Oh my..."

_'I Looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me.'_

"Sound familiar then? I'm guessing you're the young woman, and the Doctor is the lonely stranger, and the War was the Time War."

"You've got to be winding me up, did George or Mickey put you up to this? I bet you're not even alien. Who are you?"

"I'll take that outburst as a "yes", and I am really not human. I am pure Gallifreyan unlike some people I could mention, and I'm a Time Lord; passed all my exams with top marks, and I worked in a highly important job before and during the War." He held out his wrists to Rose. "Don't believe me? Feel my heartbeat."

Rose tentatively reached forward, found his double pulse and stifled a gasp. It was true. He was a Time Lord. The Doctor was wrong about being the last. After all wouldn't be the first time he was wrong: he'd thought the same about the Daleks... and there was that time in Disney World. "Okay, so fine you have two hearts, but you still didn't answer my question about who you are."

"Oh. Sorry. I am a little rude this time around. My name is Thalonraxianplatonlationbarrina, of the oldest and greatest house of Lungbarrow, and you are?"

"Bit of a mouthful that. My name is Rose, Rose Tyler."

"Most Gallifreyan names are. Pleased to meet you Rose Tyler. Call me Thalon for short, my brother always did, so I'm used to it. 'Sides you should hear his name, be all day saying it, no wonder he calls himself "the Doctor" all the time, I would with a name like that, I think our father was trying to inflict a cruel and unusual new type of punishment on him, his mother just wanted to call him John. Then with each regeneration and century you add another syllable--"

"You're the Doctor's brother?" She asked snapping out of the stunned realisation.

"Yeah, same father, different mothers. I was father's obligation child; he went on to have him later. In our society everyone is paired with someone to have a child with, depending on the population stability. We don't have the same drive as humans since we live so long, so it's decided to keep the population going that way. The families pair off people like a sort of arranged marriage that only lasts for a certain amount of time then they are free to either re-marry permanently or go their own way. All the pairings are more or less political to improve their family standings in society. It's all done artificially anyway; not that we can't do things naturally, takes the fun out of things some people say, but it's how it's done. It's actually quite rare for a child to be born outside an arrangement, even more so through natural means, and my family is one of the oldest and most influential of them all, even if we are considered oddballs; father being the head of the family even more so, so guess that's where the eccentric names comes from. Both of us have had to do it and have an obligatory child."

_'I was a dad once.'_

"Well considering your ability to ramble I can believe it, you look similar, too, though might be by accident since the Doctor said he can't control what he looks like or he'd be ginger, and well..." She trailed off looking downwards since she didn't want to sound stupid.

"Feel like him?" At Rose's incline of her head he added, "You must be one of the percentage of humans with telepathic ability, not surprising really since you are the Bad Wolf. What we call telepathic signature, some people call aura on your world: that comes from our soul, our energy, the life force that makes us... well, us. That never changes no matter how many times our body may change. It's how we recognise each other. Of course, since we are related, ours are similar. That, deep down, is how you know I'm telling you the truth."

"The Doctor always said he could feel it if there was more of his people, that they are all connected, how come he didn't feel you?"

"He wouldn't without the Matrix. The Matrix was a system that stored the knowledge of all Time Lords and boosted our abilities so we were connected through all of Time and space, but only the Lord or Lady President had access to be able to see into the Matrix and look for specific memories or knowledge. Without it we would need to be within range of each other, but the silence is deafening, more terrifying than the worst nightmare, he probably never thought of it in his distress. It's like being in a strange place that is threatening in some way and the lights go off and you cannot see a thing. Then you come into this new parallel universe that is even more frightening because all your senses are on edge, things feel different, then the silence or darkness becomes more and more terrifying, what you would do for something familiar, then you feel it. A friend, a family member, a source of comfort, would you believe it after all this time? Or bring it down to your imagination because you wanted it so much?"

"Yeah, I guess so when you put it that way," Rose answered. It seemed to make sense and explained so much about her Doctor; especially the first one she met. "Kind of scary to find that there's a legend about me too. I mean the Doctor I'd expect it of. There's loads about him, the Daleks called him 'the Oncoming Storm', but me… Well that's scary. I was no-one before the Doctor: just a normal shop girl, with no A levels and going nowhere."

"That's all part of the legend too," Thalon smiled. "More than a legend, it's a nursery story, it's a movie, and it's an ultimate love story we tell our children. Kind of like… "Snow White" or "Cinderella". We all grew up hearing it, and told our children the same story, and it seems it's as old as Time itself. It was his favourite as a time tot, used to read it to him over and over before he went to bed," he chuckled and even Rose had to crack a smile at the cute image, "Who knew he'd grow up to be my personal headache? Broke almost every rule in the book and even had some written because he found a loophole, or one that had been overlooked in the writing process. Heck, he stole that TARDIS from the repair bay! It was due to be decommissioned, and I, like the dutiful big brother, always bailed him out of trouble."

This time Rose broke out into an all-out laugh. "Why does none of that surprise me?" Since the time she looked into the heart of the TARDIS she'd been able to understand things she said to her, and one day when the Doctor was trying to fix the chameleon circuit: which he had been trying to do for the past 900 years according to him and the TARDIS, she told her that she gets a really good laugh at him and told her some of the stuff he's tried over the years. Then she told her a secret that was just between them, something she swore never to tell him, that had Rose laughing for three weeks after; apparently nothing was wrong with the circuit, she'd just been deliberately staying as a Police Box. She did it at first cause he was a little full of himself, then because she found it funny; which she still does since he's not figured it out yet, and also she likes being a police box. She finds it rather amusing when people come in for the first time and see the size difference then run out, looking around her outsides to check. They had become good friends because the TARDIS felt that anyone who was willing to die for him was worth her respect and they had seen into each other, after all. After Sarah Jane, the TARDIS assured her she'd not go without her even if he wanted to, she was rather determined to play matchmaker.

"Yeah, that particular TARDIS was being decommissioned because it was too wilful. Never did a thing it was told--"

"That's horrible," Rose interrupted.

"They aren't supposed to be so sentient, but it always seemed to suit my brother fine. Think she was glad to escape. Of course that was before Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar managed to pass the TARDIS Rights Act stopping that; claiming a TARDIS is a living thing and should have the rights of any other sentient being. That was in more recent years, before the War. They used to be treated a similar to cattle..."

"Good 'cause it's a horrible thing to do, a TARDIS isn't a peace of meat."

"The ethics behind it were always debated, for years in fact, the Doctor was pro-saving them. But I'm rambling again aren't I?" At Rose's nod he stopped then looked at her more seriously, "You've got to help me get out of here and get the parts I need for the TARDIS. Then we can get home, you can see him again and I'll feel a lot more at ease."

Rose thought about it for a bit but knew her mind was already made up. She knew she'd never see her family, Mickey, Jake, or any of the friends she met here again, but the Doctor was everything to her. She needed to see him again. "What do you need?"

**Chapter 2**

Martha laughed as she got off the metal grate of the TARDIS control room floor, then helped the Doctor get up. "So real proper holiday?"

"Yup, sun, sea and sand in the Caribbean for a bit."

"You said that when you took us to Universal Studios in Florida a hundred years before it was built."

The Doctor reached back and scratched his neck, "Well least it was only 'gators in swamp land."

"Sure, thirty-feet-long _alien_ 'gators with lasers."

"Yeah well, what fun would things be without an alien invasion?"

"Then there was the time we went to that paradise planet the one week in every forty years it's booked by a race of cannibals and anyone else is fair game for food."

"I'm starting to get the distinct feeling you don't trust me Martha Jones," the Doctor remarked, folding his arms.

"Oh I trust you fine, it's your ability to fly this thing I have doubts about," she laughed.

"Don't listen to her, old girl," he replied, stroking the TARDIS, "She doesn't mean to call you a "thing". She's from a time period beyond the understanding of living machines." He looked back up at Martha, who rolled her eyes at him and he opened the door, "Come on, it'll be fine, I promise." They walked out and the Doctor closed the door after Martha. "It's just the, um, rainforest part of the Caribbean."

Martha shook her head and followed him further away from where the TARDIS seemed to be hidden behind some trees. "Sure it is."

"But this can be relaxing, look around you! We're probably one of the few people to ever set foot in here! No one has seen this before. An unspoilt paradise, and get a whiff of that unpolluted air - completely unlike London, and --"

"Excuse me sir? Could you and the lady get back on the path now? Walking in areas that are undesignated can wreck the delicate ecosystem."

They turned around to see a tour guide and a crowd of people taking pictures of them, and Martha wished she could get one of the look on the Doctor's face at that moment. She burst out laughing,

"Sure thing, Doctor." Martha spluttered. She took a deep breath and got hold of herself. "It's only the Eden Project after all."

"Well it's not that ba---"

"Don't you dare, don't even think it. As soon as you say something like that, a fleet of Daleks will come storming in here with your luck."

"Just don't ask him to take you to Heathrow airport," an older woman with an Australian accent who was staring at them remarked, looking at the Doctor like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She was accompanied by an old man and woman; the man looking at them knowingly, a tall ginger haired man who was now sniggering, a blond woman in her forties who was grinning from ear to ear, and a woman with long black hair also in her forties who had a early-teenage boy with her.

The Doctor looked flabbergasted and was staring mouth open and closing like a goldfish until the woman with the black hair took a picture of him, the flash seemingly snapping him out of it. "What is this, "pick-on-the-Doctor day"?"

"Shouldn't have come on UNIT Reunion day then," she said and took his arm, the blond took the other and they started to drag him along. "That's one for the album, and the newsletter later. Come on everyone will love to see what the TARDIS dragged in."

"Oh come on Sarah Jane, do I have to?"

"Yes. No getting out of it this time Doctor," the other woman replied.

"Oh hello, Jo! Rassilon, it's been forever. How are you?"

"Divorced with my husband, living with my two children in the Powell Estate in London. Keep managing to miss you somehow."

"Jackie's fine, so's Rose," he said rather sadly. "They got stuck in a parallel dimension. Jackie... she's happy she's with the Pete of that world. It's a long story."

"I knew Rose since she was little and Jackie was the first to welcome me when I arrived; it was single mothers stick together. Her and my daughter Shireen were best mates."

"Yeah, small universe," the Doctor replied and quickly changed the subject, as it still hurt to think of Rose. "So, Turlough, what are you doing here on Earth in this time period?"

"Dunno. Just woke up here one day, found Tegan, been staying with her ever since." He squeezed Tegan's hand and the Doctor got a big goofy grin.

"Thought you two didn't like each other," he teased. Then sobered, "And I thought you weren't talking to me, Tegan?"

"Got over it." Tegan smiled.

"So who are these people?" Martha asked, half-amused.

"These are my friends, most of whom of travelled with me at one point, and UNIT were the people that I worked for back when I was stuck on Earth for a while, helped them occasionally since then. This lady here on my left, is one of my best friends Sarah Jane Smith, and on my right, is Jo Grant - she was my assistant when I worked for UNIT, she got stuck with me because her uncle was trying to find somewhere to put her. Over here is Tegan Jovanka, she travelled with me for a while along with Vislor Turlough. I don't know what are you lot are doing at a UNIT reunion."

"We've done work for them after we left you." Turlough supplied.

"Okay, I suppose that makes sense. So, anyway, over here is Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and his wife Doris. The Brigadier has been a very good friend to me over the years; he used to run UNIT when I worked for them."

"I do again, temporarily," the Brigadier added, trying to ignore the disapproving look from his wife. "After the incident at Downing Street they were short of people to do the job."

"Well good for you," the Doctor grinned, stopping as Doris glared at him, "...Or not."

"Oh come on Doris, I'm only doing paperwork now anyway, being UNIT commander isn't what it used to be, and they were short, they even pulled Benton out of retirement."

"Good old Benton. Is he here?"

"Yes, he's around somewhere. We're supposed to be meeting at the new function room in about ten minutes," one of the others replied.

"You know, even now there's only been a handful of humans that have ever gone into the TARDIS for the first time and not said "it's bigger on the inside", and Lieutenant John Benton is one of them. I asked him if he was going to say it at the time but he replied "Isn't it obvious?", and he's as loyal as they come, even let me escape once, no, forget that, sorry, wasn't supposed to tell you that... anyway, I don't know who the other one is."

"He's Major Benton now. Oh, I nearly forgot. Luke, come here," Sarah gestured for the boy to come over who did and she placed her other arm around his shoulders, "Doctor, I'd like you to meet my adopted son Luke. Luke, this is my very good friend the Doctor."

"Hello Luke!" the Doctor grinned from ear to ear now, "See you could get to tell those grandkids things after all. I'd shake your hand, Luke, only your mother and my other friend here seem intent on dragging me to one of those reunions I've always avoided. So how'd you end up with Sarah?"

"I was grown in a factory. Cloned from the scans of every visitor, they wanted to improve the formula of the _Bubble Shock! _so it would appeal to everyone, so they could take over the whole population of the planet. Sarah Jane stopped them and I had nowhere to go, so she took me in."

"Really?" The Doctor asked, looking even more pleased at Sarah. "Well that's just brilliant, see Sarah you're getting along great."

"Thank you, and Luke remember you're not supposed to tell people that. The Doctor's fine, but anyone can hear here. Be careful, it'd be bad enough explaining you've no navel if you needed a check-up. And you're growing so fast it's unbelievable."

"A check-up what?" Luke asked, confused.

The Doctor laughed, "Luke, my friend, you have a lot to learn, can't be good for you growing up in a factory. I like this kid already, by the way, Sarah."

"That's why I brought him along, he needs to get out and experience new things... On this world and in this time," she added as an afterthought giving the Doctor a knowing look.

"Yeah, well even so, there could be a problem with the accelerated growth of the cloning process. We should bring him to the TARDIS and check everything is okay --"

"Or it could be the fact he's a teenage boy and starting a growth spout," Sarah interrupted. "You go in there and you'll run off. He'll be fine till the end of the function anyway."

"Oh come on Sarah, would I do a thing like that?"

"Yes." All his former companions said simultaneously, then burst out laughing.

"Great, this is going to be what it's like all day, isn't it?"

"Pretty much." Jo quipped.

"But you can take it like a man!" Tegan added, still giggling a little.

"I had a nightmare like this once," the Doctor said as they got out of the rainforest dome and into the common area. "Only I think I was naked and there was dancing monkeys involved somehow."

"That was last week when I found you on that planet after you were captured," Martha reminded him getting into the spirit of things.

"All I need is for Jack to hear that," he muttered as everyone started laughing.

"Hear what?" A masculine American voice asked from somewhere off to the side of him.

"What is this? This is your life?" The Doctor asked bemused.

"About me finding him as naked as the day he was born, in a prison with dancing monkeys," Martha said to Jack, ignoring the Doctor, as a way of a greeting, then smiled and hugged him briefly. She had met him back when they had gone to Cardiff and Jack had travelled with them for a short while before going back to Torchwood.

"Sounds like fun, wish I'd have been there."

"So do I," the Doctor replied. "If you were there it would have been you, because you're the one that ends up naked somehow no matter where we go. Even that time me, you and Rose went to Disney World. I'm kind've glad I've regenerated since then, least that gets me out of the lifetime ban if they can't recognise me."

"It wasn't me that got us banned," Jack laughed.

"Then who?" Martha asked laughing.

"I still maintain that Donald Duck was trying to take over the world, I heard him conspiring with Goofy. Turned out I was wrong, but a Time Lord, no matter how brilliant, is allowed to be wrong every now and then."

"I had to ask. That explains why you wanted to go to Universal instead."

"Speaking of regeneration, you've done it again, Doctor," the Brigadier remarked.

"Yeah, twice."

"You certainly seem to be going through them," Jo added.

"Oh don't worry about me, at the end of time it will be me, Jack and the cockroaches."

"I'll remember to bring my bug spray," Jack laughed, trying to cover how disturbed he was that the Doctor was probably right about him. "Come on, we're all set up just over here."


	2. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Thalon watched through the mirror glass that didn't quite work with his Gallifreyan eyes, as the tall one Rose called George put all his belongings into a bag-like thing to be taken away and catalogued. He was waiting for a signal from Rose, and he saw it as she walked in to talk to the man and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver he'd picked from Rose's pocket, although when he said "pick" he meant more "Rose let him take in a convincing manner from her pocket". He rather likes the blonde woman and can see what the Doctor sees in her, he'd have her for himself if she weren't married to his brother in the oldest, deepest traditional way of his people. "Well bro, I've always wanted to be more like you, even if I never let on. Time to see if this daft scheme your Rose has come up with works."

Pressing the button and turning it, the door of his holding cell opened and he rushed out and grabbed Rose in a classic hostage-taker pose, standing behind her using one arm to restrain her arms behind her back, and the other pressed the sonic screwdriver to her head. He just hoped the other man didn't know it really couldn't do anything to her. "Hand goes near that panic button and I kill her dead."

George looked stunned then put his hands in the air, "Okay, okay, just don't hurt her."

"It's okay, just do as he says, don't act the hero," Rose told him in a panicky voice and she had to applaud their acting skills.

"Okay, now throw me that bag," as George moved forward he added, "slowly." As the bag was thrown gently to him, he noticed George's hand move towards the button on the badge he wore. He acted quicker than he thought possible and pointed the sonic screwdriver at George, turning it on, a puff of smoke coming from the badge as sparks flew out of it, causing the taller man to jump back and rip it off his shirt. "I told you no panic button. Now hands behind your head."

"Okay, I'm sorry just don't hurt Rose," George squeaked, making Rose feel really bad for doing this to him, but the less people that were in on this, the better. She didn't want anyone else getting in trouble because of her. It didn't matter about her really, since she was leaving, but the longer she could hold the pretence of being a hostage, the better, because of the diversion that Mickey had agreed to do in R&D for her.

"Now on your knees, then lie down, face to the floor." As George lay down, Thalon rummaged through the bag and pulled out some rope from inside another bag-like thing that was way to small to hold so much of it. "You stand still or I'll hurt him badly." he said to Rose and tied up the other man's wrists and ankles, finishing up by bending his knees so his legs went up, then doing the same to his arms, only keeping them straight and tying his wrists to his ankles tightly so there was no give in it. "Well George I'm sure you're a lovely bloke and I'm sorry for all this, but I'm afraid I have to leave. So you just practice your yoga like a good boy and I'm sure someone will be along sooner or later. Oh and sorry to tell you, but the cameras seem to be on the blink. They didn't seem to like the setting I used to open the door." Thalon then searched through the bag again and pulled out a roll of parcel tape. "Oh, I almost forgot." He ripped some of it off the roll and covered the man's mouth, "Can't have you shouting too loud. Besides to do yoga properly one needs to breathe through the nose." He shoved a nasal spray up each nostril and squirted, "Also, since humans are susceptible to congestion, just to make sure your airways are clear for the next few years. You should be thanking me too, because that makes you immune to the common cold and most flues--"

"You're rambling again," Rose interrupted.

"Oh, sorry." He pulled out a final thing, which turned out to be a wallet, took out a blank piece of paper from another leather wallet inside that and placed it in the front pocket of his jacket with the Gallifreyan symbols on it. Finally, he pulled out ten twenty-pound notes and placed them in George's back pocket. "Compensation from the people of Gallifrey since I'm their only representative here. I'm really sorry mate."

Rose coughed loudly, "Excuse me, can you live a little? Supposed to be the hostage here remember?"

"Sorry. I'm not as good at this stuff as my brother, the Doctor's been doing this for years, whereas me, I just about know how to tie someone up. Besides, if I was doing this the Time Lord way I'd be wiping his memory and he gets nothing. Not allowed to give people money because it's interfering..."

Rose sighed, "Fine, fine, but when we get out of here think "evil genius"."

"No, that's our other brother, Koshieshi, but we disowned him. He'll be trying to take over the universe in some harebrained scheme that'd put that coyote in those cartoons to shame... the one that keeps trying to catch that bird thing... anyway he calls himself the Master, and it's the Doctor's job to deal with him, and I deal with the upset that the Doctor makes. It's the whole circle of--"

"Look as interesting as it is to hear about your family and I'd love to hear it, we really don't have time right now. You haven't just regenerated or something?"

" I did just before I got here... I still am, technically, since the process lasts fifteen hours and it's been nine. This is only my fourth one so it's my fifth body. Had a nasty incident involving a stampede of big chicken things... the good thing about these clothes is they will literally make themselves fit anyone; were designed for regeneration during battle... the not so good thing is that red may have been good blending on Gallifrey but not so much on a white grass land planet. I'm babbling again aren't I?"

"Yup, now come on. We'll get you some tea when this is done. And before you ask, you're not ginger." As Thalon started taking things out of the bag and stuffing them in his pockets, George looked rather curious as to why everything seemed to fit just fine soon as it squeezed past the opening. "Sorry George, I didn't want you implicated in this. This is Thalon and he's the Doctor's brother, and he's helping me get home to him. So I'm helping him escape. Please don't worry about me because I'll be fine. It has been so great knowing you, you're the best friend I've had in a long time, I'll really miss you." She placed a kiss on the top of his head and turned to her new friend, "You ready?"

Thalon went to George and picked out an iPod from his pocket, putting another £400 in his pocket, "Yeah, I'll need to borrow your iPod, here's the money to cover it in case I don't get it back to you." He then picked up the Rubik's cube, "Can't forget him." Turning to Rose, "Okay, ready to go when you are."

Rose rolled her eyes, "Right. Think bad, think you're gonna hurt me if need be--"

"I couldn't do that..."

"I know that, you know that, but the people here aren't supposed to know that. Now remember: I'm your hostage."

"Okay." he replied and pointed the sonic screwdriver at Rose's back and moved out of the room and turned down the corridor only to notice Rose wasn't following him.

"The lifts are the other way," Rose sighed, and at that moment she couldn't help but wonder what she's got herself into.

"I knew that... I was just making sure you knew that..." He turned and followed Rose to the lifts with the white doors and chrome panelling at the end of the white sterile corridor. He pressed the button and waited for the lift, "So how long has your friend got the camera's blinking on and off for before they notice that the one in the holding cell is offline?"

"Probably ten minutes more... but we'll have to be careful; this area isn't used much so there aren't many people here. We normally only have a few mischief-makers to deal with, they are taken elsewhere. These cells are for the dangerous prisoners, it's harder to escape from here but Mickey has taken the extra security measures offline as well. Normally an alarm goes off when one of the cameras go off or when the door's been forced open, or the if there's use of a sonic device but the alarms don't seem to be working as well as half the cameras blinking on and off. Appears the computer systems have contracted a new virus that will take the experts at least an hour to fix. Oh and the virus seems to have corrupted our conversation records including back ups and double back ups beyond repair, as well as the data trail."

"That's some friend you got."

"Mickey's from my universe as well, we used to go out before I met the Doctor." Rose replied as she got in the lift with Thalon. Thalon used the sonic screwdriver on the controls to go up two levels.

The lift doors opened and they walked out into a vast underground storage area that was packed with chrome shelves of white cardboard boxes and some larger objects that wouldn't fit into a box. Thalon grinned manically and ran forward to the nearest box and started digging, then the next one and did the same for all the boxes occasionally putting things in his bottomless pockets. He picked up one of the larger unboxed items and looked it over, "It's amazing looking at all the stuff here! I mean here's a vintage Angorianaian glob-bread toaster! I've not seen one of these for years!"

"I've seen enough to last a lifetime, thanks," Rose replied, rolling her eyes. That was another one of Rast's 'products', "and before you use it you should know that it's likely to blow up."

Thalon put it in his pocket anyway, which was comical considering the size of it. "Yeah maybe but I'm sure I can fix it... or at least use the parts. You get a lot of Angorianaian stuff then?"

"Yeah mostly from the same guy. His name's Rast, he's always coming here trying to sell off stuff that doesn't work. Just yesterday it was exploding doorknobs. I mean, how the hell did he get an ordinary metal doorknob with no mechanical parts in it to explode? That's the one thing that beats me. He only does it cause he fancies me, so he wants to get caught so he can chat me up for a few hours before we're forced to send him on his way. The only thing he's ever brought here that works is that sonic screwdriver, and that's cause I asked him to get me one. Not that Torchwood knows about it... and now you've got me babbling!"

"Oh it's just my winning personality." Thalon said, flashing a grin.

Rose laughed, "You looked so much like the Doctor there, it's funny."

"Yes well we're a lot like each other except that I've behaved like a good little Time Lord, never getting into trouble, never enjoying life, never going to do something just because it's there or to see what it feels like. I was always envious of him that he could do all that, and I'm fed up of it. But now? No more Time Lords to rebel against so better late than never eh? It's just hard sometimes to stop myself automatically going back to my old ways. The Doctor does it so naturally everyone always blamed it on the human in him."

"Hang on... human? What d'you mean human in him??"

"Human in him, like I said. The Doctor's half human. Same as our other brother. My dad had an affair with a human woman, it was a huge scandal at the time but I love my brothers to death, anyway. Always sticking up for them, stopping the other kids from picking on them. Was always getting into fights at school cause I was keeping the other kids away from my brothers. There was this one time I had several broken ribs, a broken nose, and a black eye cause I lost it at this one boy that called the Doctor a 'half-breed' and took his school books, throwing them around everywhere and ripping them and so on. I might have been bad but you should have seen the other boy, he wasn't able to walk for two months. I'm 5 years older than the Doctor and Koshieshi; they're twins: the boy in question was 7 years older than me and a lot bigger and heavier. Anyway after that no one picked on them ever again when I was likely to get back at them; were too afraid. So it's not surprising he never said, it's a sore subject. It's probably why he's so attached to Earth and humanity."

"Thought you said you've been a good Time Lord? And poor Doctor, I never knew, it must have been terrible. I mean isn't that such a human thing to do to other kids? I didn't expect it of your own people."

"Time Lord, not boy. Never got into trouble after I went to the Time Lord Academy then became one. And yes, you'd think we should be past that, but our people never mixed with other societies until a few years before the War started and most of that was the Doctor's doing, whether directly or indirectly. A few things started to change after he was born, then he brought a human back with him that stayed behind and married one of our cousins. Then Romanadvoratrelundar, or Romana as the Doctor nicknamed her and she stuck to, went with him on a mission from the High Council to keep an eye on him but at the same time they needed plausible deniability for. She got to see the universe in a different light from what we see as pure observers. We only step in when something is going to go wrong with timelines and cause a paradox. Romana was out there with him, interacting with people, and when they tried to call her back to Gallifrey she left the Doctor and hid, getting to learn more. When she eventually came back, she wanted to do something to change things and got all the way to the top, shaking the old order of things along the way. If it wasn't for her and the alliances she made despite the xenophobia of some of our people, the Daleks would have got the whole universe and the other realities and universes a long time before. Our people may be dead, there may be a few stray Daleks but the Time War is over and the universe is safe... for now, at least." He gave a small smile at another memory, trying to forget the War, "He even managed to get a human girl in the Academy, she was a wolf also, so could be classified for refugee status, and the Doctor adopted her to get her in. She was a laugh, used to blow things up all the time, she wasn't afraid of anything; she took out a Dalek with a baseball bat once. Though I think it gave his actual son another excuse to not speak to him, they never got along much. He was very much a 'proper' Gallifreyian and the Doctor was a radical, even blamed him for the human genes."

"Hardly his fault, that," Rose said as they moved to another row of shelves and Thalon took more things. "And what d'you mean, "also a wolf"?"

"Well when the War started they made up their differences and became close friends. My brother even managed to set him up with another Time Lady in our unit. The war changed a lot of people... Even Koshieshi became less evil and helped out. As for "also a wolf"… Okay, "wolf" is a term for people that are born from a paradox often created by themselves. Ever wonder why there is no Rose Tyler in this universe?"

_'I create myself…'_

The realisation of what those words meant dawned on her that instant, it was something she never thought of before. "You mean when I looked into the TARDIS I made sure the events happened that led to my birth? But the paradox is that if I never was born, I'd never have been able to go with the Doctor and look into the TARDIS?"

"Bit like the chicken and the egg, huh? You're good, I'll give you that. A lot of your species at your stage of development can't grasp that. You're special though, 'cause you have a part of a TARDIS' heart in you, a part of the Time Vortex. Most wolves don't have that."

"Why do you call us wolves?" She asked, a little more curious, that's one thing the time spent here had brought her: an insistent curiosity about things.

"The wolves of Fenric," he replied. "Fenric is an ancient evil from the dawn of time, the Doctor has encountered him twice, once imprisoning him and the second time killing, but you can never truly kill evil, so no doubt Fenric is still lurking around somewhere. Fenric's wolves are people that he uses to do his bidding through manipulating events without knowing their true purpose. You're the Bad Wolf because you go against Fenric's plan by destroying his army, so the legend says, despite him setting up the situation to destroy the lonely stranger because he has stood in his way before. There's another Wolf mentioned that fights him as well and that's created by the Bad Wolf, one that cannot die. I mean, the whole thing is so detailed, I've only told you the basic version of the kid's story."

_'I bring life'_

"Jack... Oh--"

"Who's there?"

"Quick, take me hostage again!!"

Thalon pulled a ray gun out of a box beside him and pointed it at Rose's head just as the cause of the voice came around the corner. "No fuss or I shoot."

The owner of the voice froze, it was an average build Asian woman dressed in a white lab coat and trouser suit underneath. She stopped dead and looked at them both a little befuddled. "Miss Tyler?"

"It's okay, just do as he says, he's a little crazy."

"And hands away from your badge or you may find out just how crazy I am!"

The woman put her hands up in front of her, "Okay, but if I don't check in soon the alarm will be raised."

"The alarm system is down, all I need is a few more things and we'll be on our way."

"Okay, what do you need? Maybe I can help," she asked, obviously trying to think of a way to raise the alert that there was a hostage situation and an ET has the director's daughter.

"I need a wormhole generator, power crystals, and data storage crystals."

"Fine, I can get you those things, the unsorted crystals are all on row O, but for the other thing, you'll need to go to R&D."

"Right, let's move then, you lead, but keep your hands where I can see them."

The woman turned and walked back the way she came with her hands up in the air. Rose and Thalon followed, they turned around the corner but only got a few steps when they ran into a security guard.

"Oh crap," Thalon muttered. "Okay, no one move! I've got Miss Tyler here as my hostage, anything happens and--"

"We have a situation, unfriendly in the un-catalogued storage room, he's got Miss Rose Tyler from Special Division hostage, request immediate backup."

"I'm so sorry about this," Thalon said before firing his weapon at the guard then the Asian woman causing them both to crumple to the floor. "Thank Rassilon for the invention of the stun setting."

"Never mind that, they'll be along any minute, let's move!"

Rose ran along full speed, Thalon running after her, making sure to keep his gun pointing forward and turned into row 'O'. He then proceeded to grab as many boxes as he could and just tipped the contents into his pockets. Once he got to the sixth one there was a shout from behind them somewhere, "They're still alive, have the floor evacuated. Remember, only stun, we can't hurt the hostage."

"Over there," Rose pointed ahead of them, "there's an air grate."

Thalon ran along behind Rose and got to the air grate and looked at it. "It's screwed on."

"This might be a guess, but I think they called it a sonic _screwdriver_, and not just because they thought the name sounded cool."

"Oh yeah, forgot. Told you I'm not as good at this as my brother." Thalon used the sonic screwdriver to unscrew the grate then pried it off. "Ladies first." Rose went through and Thalon closely followed behind, putting the grate back in place and screwing it shut from the inside with the screwdriver. "Some people might think it's just a gimmick making a screwdriver sonic but how else is someone supposed to screw something from the inside?"

"Just in time, too," Rose added as the guards ran past them. She started to crawl forward, only she had to stop at the sheer noise of it. "Why is it never so noisy when they do this in films?"

"Well it'd kinda spoil the plot a bit if they made a lot of noise sneaking through these places."

"But they'll know where we are."

"I think they'll figure it out eventually, anyway. Come on let's get moving. If we go quick might take them longer to figure out exactly where we are." They crawled ahead as fast as possible under the circumstances. Eventually they had to stop as the vent split of in all directions. "What way?"

"How should I know?" Rose sighed, "I'm guessing we don't go down without breaking a limb at least, and unless you can climb up walls, not up, so guess a direction?"

Thalon gave a small chuckle, "Or… we follow the company logo."

"What d'you mean?"

"Read it."

Rose looked at the logo that was off to the right side, it had a little wolf head and under it, it read "Bad Wolf Ventilation Inc.". Rose had to give a small laugh herself, "Guess I already saw this coming." Sure enough, every time they had a choice in direction there was a logo telling them where to go until they reached a grate. "Oh well, I suppose it's time to find out where Bad Wolf has taken us to then."

Rose pushed open the grating and they came out to find they were at one of the stairwells belonging to the emergency exits. "We're still on sub level four, and R&D is on level Ten in this universe."

"Time to get climbing while I throw together a device that should help us out."

"At this stage I wouldn't be surprised if you produced a bazooka from your pockets."

"No, sorry, it got destroyed when I blocked the barrel and fired it remotely to make a bigger bang when I took out that squad of Cybermen. I wanted to take out the factory in Battersea but someone got there first."

"That was us, me and the Doctor along with Mickey, Jake and my Dad."

"Well, guess I should thank you then," Thalon replied pulling out some wires, the iPod and a small black box with slits for a microphone on one side. "I thought I was imagining it when I could feel him then, he probably thought the same about me. I spent a week helping to clean up after that. Good thing getting rid of that gun anyway, I hate guns; only use them as a last resort. My military issue ones are still in the TARDIS."

"You used one on that guard and the filing clerk back there," Rose reminded.

"I was panicked, Time War made me like that, shoot first, think after. Anyway it was on stun, stun is different to the kill setting, I don't mind stunning people or doing something that's not going to do permanent harm. Mind you, Daleks I've no problem killing, that's probably another hangover from the war."

"I couldn't, not at first. First one I met absorbed my DNA and it changed, it became something different. I stopped the Doctor from shooting it, and in the end it couldn't handle the new feelings it had and it ordered me to tell it to die. I did. I had to; I still have second thoughts but I know it was the right thing to do."

"You're amazing, Rose Tyler. Your capacity to love and care, it's amazing. You got upset about TARDISes dying, a Dalek - even though it's a born killer, and you took in a broken man and helped him. Put him back together again. You're a special person, I can see what my brother fell in love with."

"Don't know about that," Rose said shyly, which was unusual because she wasn't the shy type.

"I see it in you, your heart, and you wouldn't be running up stairs with me in a daft scheme to get back to him carrying a piece of his soul if he didn't love you deeply, and you the same," Thalon stated quite seriously as he finished up connecting the iPod to the box with the sonic screwdriver. "In fact he's probably still thinking about you right now and kicking himself over so much he didn't do, if I know my brother. And I do know my brother."


	3. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The Doctor sat at a table in the corner of the room. Hiding from the mingling people, he looked out at those there that he knew. He noted the changes, how they had aged, and continued on with their lives, while he was stuck in the same life, doing the same thing, wandering the universe and fixing things – meddling, as his people described it. Tegan and Turlough where together; she was one of the few he could have loved if he had let himself. Then there was Sarah Jane. She'd picked up her life now and had a son, and for him she was another regret: someone he could have been with, and whom he had loved a little. Then there was Romana, oh Romana, there was so much to say about her. They had been lovers for a short time before they had parted. She went off into E Space and he went on. When she came back to Gallifrey she had her own life, and he had his - one which didn't involve his home world. Now she was gone, along with the rest of Gallifrey and his people.

But out of all the people he had known and travelled with in his entire lifetime, his biggest regret was Rose. His Rose, how much he loved her still. He'd held back in a misguided sense that somehow it would hurt less if he didn't acknowledge their feelings and the special bond they had. He'd wandered around aimlessly for ten years after the whole incident with Donna turning up on his TARDIS, before he'd found Martha. During that time he had plenty of time to think about Rose and how he should have gave in, should have had that small measure of comfort and happiness. He knew now that he truly loved her, like he would never love again. It was that soul-deep love, the kind that a thousand different poets, authors, and song writers had tried to write about, using millions of words, for almost as long as time itself. On more lonely days he contemplated what life would have been like if he had been stuck with her all those years in the future, in that house with the doors, and windows, and a mortgage, and suddenly it didn't seem so bad. For as long as she lived he would be with her and love her, and deal with the aftermath when it happened, knowing the heartache but still being able to look back on better times when he was loved and for the first time truly had a home. If he ever had a chance with her again he'd tell her everyday how he felt and would treat her like a queen and never take her for granted ever again.

The face of Boe said he was not alone, but he knew deep down he was wrong even if it did spell out Yana. The Doctor had never been more alone, and being the last of the Time Lords was a tall order, well okay technically he wasn't, the Master had survived but he wasn't exactly helping. He had to do so much, fix so many anomalies and cracks in time, all on his own. He'd had plenty of time to think about it and he knew now that as much as it pained him he would have to have children to continue his race, train them to follow in his footsteps so to be capable of helping him, but there was no one other than his Rose he could even imagine taking the time to stop travelling for, settle down and to have these children with. So it seemed he would be alone and faced with this task for the rest of his life. It was his penance for his sins. But right now what he wanted more than ever was his father because even though they never got along and was practically raised by his older brother, the closed-off man at least knew what it was to be in love with a human.

"You look lost and broken," the Brigadier remarked as he sat down beside the Doctor.

The Doctor plastered on his happy mask. "Me lost? I'm always lost, never know where I'm going to end up most the time. Just ask Sarah, dropped her off in Aberdeen instead of Croydon! And I'm alright! You know me, I'm always alright."

"Yes, I know about Sarah, she called me afterwards and I had to send someone up to Aberdeen to get her. And yes I do know you, which is why I know you're plastering on a façade and you're not alright. That might work on most people, Doctor, but it won't work on me. What happened?"

The Doctor let out a long sigh and slumped slightly. The Brigadier did indeed know him very well, as did Sarah, and he knew one or both of them would ask. "Billions upon billions of Daleks happened." He swallowed a lump. "There was a war between my people and the Daleks and we lost. Everyone lost. My home, my people, it was all sacrificed to save the whole universe, the whole multiverse even. I'm all that's left. I became a shadow of myself doing the same old thing on my own, didn't want anyone to have to endure my company, and I often took large risks hoping to die and be with the rest of my people. "

"But something happened to change all that?" The Brigadier asked.

The Doctor gave a ghost of a smile in return. "I met a girl. An ordinary shop girl, in the auton attack the shop she worked in had a transmitter relay. I was in the basement of that shop and she was down there to hand in the lottery takings to some manager that was already dead. I grabbed her hand and said one word, just one word: 'run'. We kept running, didn't stop, until she was pulled into another universe and I lost her. I can't get to her.

But, Rassilon, I loved her, still love her, will always love her. I love her more than anything, more than the Earth, the universe, my TARDIS, time and space itself, and it scares the hell out of me. Then me, like the big blundering idiot I am, kept trying to ignore how I felt, and she obviously felt some noble sense of protecting herself, or, more to the point, me since I'm going to live so much longer, and everyone leaves in the end."

"We can all be idiots when it comes to women, and it appears you're no different to the rest of us, Doctor. Just look how long it took me to marry Doris."

"At least Doris was still in reach when you stopped being an idiot. There's no way of getting to Rose. I died for her once you know? I sent her home during a Dalek invasion far far into the future from now but she never did listen to me, she looked into the TARDIS, into the time vortex, and came back. She looked so beautiful, glowing in swirling light. She just waved her hand and all the Daleks turned to dust, just because she loved me. The time vortex was going to burn her up so I kissed her to draw out the time vortex and put it back in the TARDIS, but it merged our souls, we became true soul mates then, which wouldn't have happened unless our feelings were true. It was too much and I regenerated into this body, but it was so worth it. I'd use all my remaining regenerations to do the same again. Now she's trapped on a parallel Earth with her mum and a parallel version of her dad, along with her ex-boyfriend Mickey, and I can't get to her, it's literally impossible. Not without collapsing two universes at any rate."

"Never say never. The one thing that's stayed the same, through all the years I've known you, is that, for you, nothing is impossible."

"Alistair! Come over here and see this."

"Coming Doris my dear." The Brigadier got up and turned to the Doctor, "I guess we're just two old fools in love." He clapped him on the shoulder and added before leaving, "never give up hope old friend. If anyone deserves a bit of happiness it's you, and life has a funny way of sorting things out in the end."

The Doctor gave a small, sad smile and muttered, "if only it were true."

"If only what was true?" Martha asked coming out from the shadows, pretending she hadn't heard the entire conversation. She didn't mean to eavesdrop, it was just unavoidable from where she was trapped hoping they wouldn't see her there. That, and the fact she was guiltily curious since the Doctor was so closed and never told anyone anything. It took getting kidnapped, and then nearly eaten by giant crab things, for him to tell her the truth about his people and the war, and he mentioned Rose all the time yet never really _told_ her anything.

"Oh nothing, just that you can't reach between your shoulder blades on your back right in the middle. Quite annoying that when you have an itch. Though I suppose if you where double jointed you could, would be handy to be double jointed--"

"Except hyper mobility can leave the person prone to inflammatory arthritis, don't fancy that myself," a man with greying curly hair and an expensive suit replied.

"Doctor Sullivan," Martha acknowledged, recognising the man instantly.

"Miss Joans? So that's where you've got off to aye."

"Harry! Looks like everyone is here today. How you doing? You two know one another then I take it?" The Doctor asked.

"Oh yes, I'm a consultant now at the Royal Hope Hospital, retired from my work with UNIT and NATO. I'm teaching, along with several other consultants, and Miss Joans here's one of my pupils. Sadly I have to say I missed the trip to the moon by about twenty minutes."

"Oh you should have seen it, Harry. It would have been just like the old days. Plasmavore and Judoon on the moon, the whole hospital shining in the earthlight. Martha here saved my life, excellent CPR on a two-hearted person, you should make a note of that in her file, give her extra credit."

"You two travelled together as well then?"

"For a short time," Harry replied as Jack came with drinks. A pint of whatever eco-friendly beer they where trying to fob off on him, a large glass of coke for the Doctor, and a fancy cocktail with a little umbrella in it for Martha.

"Oh who's your rather sexy friend here? I can go back and get you a drink, what will it be? A screwdriver, sex on the beach--"

"It's okay chap I'm leaving," Harry replied quickly shooting dirty looks at Jack and hurrying away.

Jack laughed, his eyes on Harry's ass as the man disappeared into the crowd. "That's the problem with people in this time period, they aren't flexible enough."

"Harry's an old fashioned guy, even when I first met him," the Doctor replied, laughing. He then looked dubiously at his glass. "It's not diet is it?"

"No it's regular Coca-Cola, just like you asked, though it'd be funny if it wasn't if the last time was anything to go by."

"No thanks, too many people know me here."

"Why, what happened?" Martha asked.

"The exact chemical composition of Diet Coke has an intoxicating effect on Time Lord physiology. Alcohol, for the record, is no problem, can metabolise it at will. Diet Coke takes longer to metabolise, whereas Regular coke, as the Americans call it, is really good for the Time Lord physiology and helps focus the brain while giving an energy boost," The Doctor clarified and took a long gulp of the soft drink then added because of the look Martha was giving, "Not human. The mixture of aspartame and phenyl in Diet Coke has that alcohol-like effect, whereas regular is more sobering as it is somewhat more natural and the sugar gives a more long-term energy boost."

"He was off his head," Jack sniggered. "He took off all his clothes but his underpants and started dancing on the tables singing some Gallifreyian drinking song involving Rassilon and bananas, and declared his undying love for his shoes."

"They were really nice shoes I'll have you know 'Mister Ends-Up-Naked-No-Matter-Where-We-Go'. I was given those shoes by the queen of the royal court of New Paris. She's probably dead now after that virus killed everyone on New Earth except the ones who were in the under city of New New York. She was a cat you know, a silver tabby, loved the ball of string I got her from the yarn factories of Acadia--"

"One thing you've not lost Doctor is your ability to ramble," Jack observed, laughing.

"Ramble? Me ramble? I can talk for the universe me, two universes even. Just listen to me talk, it's the best way of stalling a megalomaniac. Make them start and then they tell you everything. I've saved the world a few times by it. Just talk, talk, talk, me, never stop talking, all day and night. Though you should have heard my older brother, he used to talk all the time too, more than me. Mostly telling me off or lecturing me every time I got into trouble. I remember the time I almost got executed via vaporisation, they wouldn't let him come anywhere near me. When I got out of it I found a holo message waiting for me in the TARDIS, had to listen to it for weeks, he'd programmed it so it wouldn't shut off. Apparently father was having kittens over me nearly getting executed. Though would have liked to have seen that, I was rather fond of cats in that incarnation. He wasn't the worst though our Thalon, almost every time I got myself into trouble he was there to get me back out of it. I remember the time when I was in the academy and I used a Chula communication device to play loud music all over the academy, and every time they came close to tracking it, it would change frequency on them. When they eventually tracked it down, two weeks later, he took the blame for me to stop me from getting expelled. Was the only time he ever got into trouble in the academy, and since his grades were so brilliant they didn't want to get rid of him, so they gave him a slap on the wrist and told him not to do it again. Forgot about that until after we met, Jack." The Doctor sobered, "still they're all gone now." He took a long drink of the coke and changed the subject, "so what you doing here, Jack?"

Jack took the question for what it was and knew he'd get no more from him on the previous subject. They were privileged to even hear what they had since the Doctor never talked about himself. It's the first time he'd ever heard he'd had a brother or father, though logically he had to have had a father, it was just something he never really thought of. "Things have changed for the better since Canary Wharf now that Torchwood is out in the open, well as much as MI-5 at any rate. People know it exists but don't know exactly what its purpose is. We work closely with UNIT now. They where pissed that Yvonne Hartman was trying to take you prisoner and that has been changed in the charter officially and finally now as of last week. You're still listed as a UNIT employee, even on the pay-roll, did you know that?"

"Really?" The Doctor asked astonished. "Why?"

"For protection from people like Torchwood. As an alien if you where captured and experimented on by any organisation or country you could be dissected before they've finished debating the ethics and your rights through official channels. Since you're not technically human, human rights or the Geneva Convention can not be applied. But as a UNIT employee it gives you the rights of any other UNIT employee and gives UNIT the right to retrieve you immediately."

"Oh yeah the Geneva convention doesn't change to include Extra Terrestrials with sentient intelligence for another twenty years yet."

"The human race is only starting to meet other races from other worlds."

"It's an exciting time for humanity, the twenty-first century is when everything changes. Just wait till they find out about the Stargate that be a laugh and a half."

"Okay now you got to be having me on, Stargate is just a TV show," Martha stated.

"Well, it is a TV show yes, but it's also an elaborate way of covering up the truth. Stargates? Stargates are easy, we make them at school when we're children. Sure they made up a few things here and there on the show, but it's mostly true, like the Asgard. My people evolved from the ancients, as they call them, who by the way are a lot older than they have them on the show. I'm actually from billons of years in the future by your time scale. And Regeneration, it's a form of ascension, only we don't fully ascend. I should take you to Atlantis, you'll love it there."

"I was born in Atlantis," Jack added. "In the fifty-first century there's a colony there. Was tempted to go there one time when I was offered 'cause I have the gene and the clearance, but I declined. Probably change the timeline since I know too much about the city they haven't discovered yet."

"Is there really an activation gene? And is it really as rare as they say on the TV show?"

"Oh yes, I have it being a Time Lord and all, and we still used the ATA Gene technology. The TARDIS key will only work if you have it or I tell the TARDIS to let you in, or she just likes you. It's more common the more generations of humans come along. At this stage I'd say probably about six percent of the Earth's population, but by Jack's time it's stronger and seventy-five percent of humans have it. Rose had the strongest gene I'd ever seen in a human, the TARDIS practically rolled over and purred for her. You have it too coincidentally, and so does Tegan over there, the TARDIS liked her so much she opened up for her, and got her lost in the corridors first time we met, then she refused to let Tegan go. Was quite funny when I look back at it, every time I set the coordinates for Heathrow Airport we ended up somewhere else. She even took us back before it was built once. The old girl has a sense of humour like that."

"You and your TARDIS," Sarah Jane joked as she joined them at the table. "You treat her like she's alive."

"She is alive. Why is it that Rose and Jack are the only ones that ever get that. The two of you laughed at me for stroking the TARDIS, but she did it all the time too. Would catch her chatting to, and petting, the wall in her room all the time. I think they where conspiring against me. Rose was always giggling when she was doing it and everything she said was muddled, the TARDIS was definitely doing that deliberately, and I could feel the TARDIS' amusement. Anyway TARDISs are grown, they're not made like a machine. They are living, not quite breathing, and sometimes sentient, beings. They are supposed to have the intelligence of your average chimpanzee, but you got the occasional one that was more so and could override their commands and programming on a whim, and mine is one of them. She's particularly temperamental, has moods, likes and dislikes things and people. For example she hates the Master and loves me, and has gotten more and more set in her ways as she's gotten older, but she's my best friend, home and family, and I love her all the same.

"And I don't call her 'old girl' for nothing. She's a female TARDIS, there are males and females of the species. She even lost a child once, now she thinks I'm her kid..." He trailed off at the lump in his throat as that had made him think of Rose. The TARDIS thought it was time he found a mate and had been trying to set him up with first Sarah, then Romana, then Tegan, but most of all Rose. She loved Rose and mourned her loss as well, and seemed to think they where perfect together. Refused to go anywhere without her after their first adventure; she'd taken him to watch Rose's life as she grew up then brought him back to the spot where they had left her and said, through their telepathic link, that under no uncertain circumstances was she going anywhere without Rose. Even now she tended to drift off to her favourite spot in the Powell estate. Not for the first time he wondered what Rose was doing now.


	4. Chapter 5

** Chapter 5**

"Okay time for a major distraction that should help us along nicely." Thalon held up the device he'd cobbled together using the iPod.

"This should stop the guards from being able to communicate with each other." Thalon hit the play button and everything in the area around them with a speaker, including the smoke alarms, played the first two seconds of a song by Britney Spears then faded out as the batteries died on the iPod.

"Yea great distraction for all of two seconds," Rose replied sarcastically.

"I guess I forgot to calculate the power consumption against the capacity of these primitive energy storage devices."

"Any other ideas?"

"Nope, sorry."

"Fine, use some of those power crystals then," Rose replied.

"Good idea." He dug through the pockets of his jackets and then pulled out a few and dropped them back in muttering things like, 'data', 'gemstone', 'cutting tool', 'rock', until he came to an oblong battery-sized bright blue one. "Aha, one of these should keep it running for years." Thalon managed to squeeze it into the battery slot and used the sonic screwdriver on it, he then pressed the play button again and Britney Spears blared out of every speaker in the vicinity.

"Can you move on to the next one?"

"Not a fan I take it?"

"No, not in this universe or the other one," Rose replied meekly as Thalon cycled through the play until he got to some punk stuff that her Doctor liked. This particular one she remembered listening to on the TARDIS before accidentally ending up meeting Queen Victoria and the werewolf. "He liked this one."

"The line 'it's good to be a lunatic' describes him accurately enough too."

"He was going to take me to loads of concerts but we always ended up somewhere else. We only ever ended up at two, one was Live8, and the original Live Aid."

"His TARDIS probably decided she'd rather take you to something more dangerous than a concert. Then there's his driving to factor in as well. Never was as good since that time the Time Lords banished him to Earth and removed his knowledge of TARDIS workings, and that's saying something since he wasn't that great to start with. Sure he got out of it or should I say 'I got him out of it', and that knowledge was returned but I think they, to borrow a phrase, 'botched it up' on him."

"Tell me about it, just after I met him he was supposed to take me home a few hours after we I left. Turned out it was a year later and my mum was shocked to see me. Everyone thought Mickey murdered me, they had him in for questioning and all. Would have had him in jail only they couldn't prove it, which of course they couldn't since I was alive, and the worst of it is it had only been two days for me. Mum slapped him, and I think he's been afraid of her ever since." She laughed at the last part.

"Wish I was there to see that." Thalon laughed. "Actually I could have sold tickets to see that."

Rose laughed harder and had to stop climbing the steps at level seven to catch her breath because of the laughter rather than being unfit. She, being a field agent, was, if anything, fitter than she was when she had been with the Doctor. With the Doctor her main source of exercise had been running, and true that gave her speed now, and her early years of gymnastics gave her flexibility which was good for putting into practice for her hand to hand training, but now she was required to spend at least three hours a week in the gym training on other fitness such as spinning, steps, and weights; she was also required to spend one hour a week swimming in the pool at the Torchwood gym complex. It was no ordinary swimming pool either, it had a currant you had to swim against, and they could simulate swimming in rough tides, as well as a separate diving pool. On top of it all Rose had been trained in firearms: both alien and human, hand to hand, and she had just finished a physics degree through this universe's equivalent of the Open University.

Rose had grown up a lot since she met the Doctor, she was no longer the naive teenager that he met that day in Henricks. She also, although not required, liked to go for a jog around the grounds of Pete's mansion before going to bed as it helped her sleep; she seemed to have so much energy she had no idea what to do with it all, and, now Rose thought about it, that had started back when she became Bad Wolf. Along with her ability to heal quickly from injury she now also had reflexes so good she almost could see when something was coming beforehand. Before she came here she had just thought it was the TARDIS' influence and had kept her so busy, and during the past six years she never stopped long enough to think about that.

"You okay, Rose? Only three more levels to go."

"I'm always okay," Rose replied, channelling that part of her that must have been the Doctor, and started running two steps up at a time again. "Come on, don't get too far behind."

Thalon grinned and ran along behind her at the same pace. "Now you're even beginning to sound like him."

"Someone has to be the Doctor," Rose replied echoing words she said so long ago as they reached level eight.

"Yes, well I suppose. Even my own people came to think it in the end. He was an outcast for challenging the order of things and for doing instead of observing. The Celestial Intervention Agency eventually employed him to intervene on missions that they needed deniability for, and he was allowed to run free and do what he did, and to be honest things only changed for the better. The only thing that could be said that was the wrong choice is that which brought about his guilt. He was sent to stop the Daleks from ever existing, and he refused to do it in the end, he couldn't bring himself to commit genocide then, and he blames himself for the war now."

"Well that's not fair, just because he showed he was better than a Dalek doesn't mean he was responsible."

"Try telling him that. The Daleks where evil and brought with them great destruction, but as the Doctor himself has admitted they also brought people together and made planets forge great alliances from the fear of the name 'Dalek'. I tried to tell him, and I'm sure we both can try when we get back, that without the Daleks there would have been something else to form the power vacuum and the consequences could have been far worse than we ever imagined. It was short sighted of the Time Lords to have even sent him on such a mission, and he was one of the few at the time to have seen it."

"Yeah," Rose agreed as they got to level 10. "Okay remember keep the gun on me, and set to stun."

Thalon checked the gun, and then used the sonic screwdriver he held in his other hand to bypass the key-card lock and open the door. They walked into a vast room that was three stories high, which contained crates, bits of space ships, computers, scanning equipment, and various other things. In one corner there was a very large flat lift that dropped downwards, which was used for bringing the larger objects in. On all but one wall there were doors that lead to offices or other smaller research labs, and the one wall without doors contained windows that used one-way glass to the outside overlooking Canary Wharf. People were too busy bustling maniacally and frantically, doing things with equipment, to even notice their arrival, which gave some understanding as to the utter mayhem that was going on in Torchwood Tower at that moment. "So, where to start?"

"Across to the other side of the room; beside the big hatch that reaches the ceiling," Rose said and pointed. "The mauve door labelled '3', which incidentally has a Bad Wolf sticker on it. Bad joke from Mickey... Well, so I thought at the time. Anyway they keep a wormhole device in there, and Mickey's current job is to hack into the programming to see if there is a way of having more than one activate on a single planet. He works with seven other people, all of which are not in there as they seem to be running around in here like headless chickens, and that room has the most advanced computer equipment we've worked out how to use."

"So what do we do? Just walk across there?"

"Yup, just act like you own the place. Always works for me," Rose replied and picked up two empty clipboards from a nearby table, then handed one to Thalon.

He put the gun away and walked along behind her carrying the clipboard under his arm. They got about halfway across the room when the iPod started to play the "Mission Impossible" theme tune and Rose burst out laughing. "Strange friend you have."

"Now how cheesy is that?!" Rose exclaimed between laughter. "We better not have to dangle over a computer console trying not to touch the ground."

"Oh come on, you're loving it," Thalon reputed.

"Always," Rose replied still laughing.

"Over there!"

"Looks like we've been spotted," Thalon observed stating the obvious. "Run?"

"Run," Rose agreed and they dropped their clipboards and made a dash for it as twenty security guards, ten special agents, and some of the scientists, chased after them. They made it to the door and Thalon used the sonic screwdriver to open it, and slammed it shut when they where through. He then used the screwdriver to lock it and the other big door. Rose looked to see there were only three occupants in the room all holding up guns, one putting theirs down as they saw who it was. "Thalon meet my family. This is my Dad, Pete Tyler," she gestured to Pete, then Mickey, "Mickey Smith, my ex-boyfriend, who became the best brother I could ask for. And this is his lovely boyfriend Jake, at last took 'em long enough. I also have my Mum and little brother but they're at home."

"Rose, what's going on?" Pete asked confused. "I was told you where taken hostage, but it seems you know this man."

"Dad, I'm sorry, I had to give that impression to help get him out. Split up everyone's attention so everyone was divided. He's the Doctor's brother, and he's going to help me get back to him, and don't ask me how I know he's telling the truth, I just do. I've an instinctive trust in him, a connection that I can't even try to explain; it's like I've known him my entire life even though we only met today."

"So the music was your idea as well?" Pete asked. "Because that was very effective. The radios and phones don't work. We've been reduced to using MSN and text messaging, even paper aeroplanes."

"That was all me," Thalon told him. "Little trick I picked up once. Hi I'm Thalonraxianplatonlationbarrina or Thalon for short. Sorry to be rude, but need to get a wormhole generator before they break through the door."

"Relax Thalon, that's a new type of metal, stronger than thirty feet of concrete, light weight, and with a very high melting point. Will take at least half an hour to get through," Rose told him. "I'm more worried about how to get to your TARDIS."

"Oh don't worry 'bout that. I have it right here," Thalon informed them and reached into one of his many bottomless pockets and pulled out the Rubik's Cube. "Unlike my brother's mine have a functioning chameleon circuit. Means my TARDIS can take on any shape. Just solve the puzzle and turns into a box with a door big enough to fit whatever or whoever needs to get into it."

"What if you lose the cube?" Mickey asked eying the small object.

"What if I lose it! What if I lose it you ask? That is so, so, human! Show an ape something so brilliant, so magnificent, and you ask something like that--"

"Okay now I got to believe he's related to the Doctor," Mickey remarked to the room in general, causing Rose to smile and giggle a little because Mickey was right, Thalon was so much like the Doctor in that moment.

Thalon stooped his belittling of humans and looked at Mickey. "Fine, this is a type one hundred and twenty TARDIS, it has built in remote control. It will come to me as long as I'm in range just by telling it to telepathically." He then looked at what was against one wall on the other side of the room. "Now that is just beautiful. Would be a crime to take it apart, and I mean that quite literally. I take it that's not the only one?"

"No it's the third," Rose replied. "The first was found in Cairo, the second in the Antarctic, and this one was found in a hidden chamber under Stonehenge. You needed the gene to get the door open so it had never been discovered until I got there three years ago; we were on a family outing with my brother, and in this universe you're still allowed to touch the stones if you have enough money. Anyway I was curious about this one stone, it had wolf's head on it, and well I touched it, and then this hatch opened up to reveal a hidden chamber."

"So you have one and a backup as well as this one, yea?"

"Yes," Rose answered.

"Good, 'cause it would be a crime to take apart Earth's Stargate, after all a lot of human history depends on this primitive device."

"And I thought it was just a TV show," Mickey added as he looked at the round rings with nine chevrons and lots of glyphs.

"Well not everything is true that's on the show, the names were changed for a start, and the Goa'uld threat was greatly exaggerated, there is no Ori in this galaxy, and then there was the last episode of SG-1 when--"

"Don't you dare say it! Don't even think it," Jake interrupted speaking for the first time. "I've not seen that one yet, don't you dare spoil it."

"Oh, rambling again, sorry." Thalon scratched the back of his neck and continued, "What you're trying is possible with these old models and some modifications, that's what the ninth chevron's for. I can't tell you how though without changing the whole course of human history so sorry about that too. Anyway this gate isn't supposed to be here, it was placed here by Bad Wolf, look the point of origin is even a wolf head. Rose Tyler I like you, you have style. Probably even programmed the door to encode with your own DNA, now that is clever. My brother sure did pick a smart one, even if she doesn't know how smart she is."

Thalon handed Rose his TARDIS Cube and began using the sonic screwdriver on one of the eighth chevron.


	5. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The Doctor was loosening up more than he'd like, kept letting things slip, like talking about his brother. He sniffed the contence of his almost finished pint of coke then poked the sonic screwdriver in it and activated it, then looked up at Jack, "this is diet!"

"I swear I asked for regular," Jack exclaimed and got off his chair to go check with the bar.

"Oh well it's not as if I took a lot of it... though it does take a while to take effect."

"It would be fun though to see u drunk," Sarah added. "Kind of like that guy on the dance floor over there," she added and pointed over to where a man was dancing topless, tie over his head, longish black hair, and a thin goatee beard, while singing in some language no one but the doctor seemed to recognise.

The Doctor promptly fell off his chair laughing as he somehow got hold of a traffic cone and was using it like a megaphone.

Jack ran back to help the doctor up who bent over double with the stitch that was now present in his side from laughing so hard. "What is it?"

"That man--" the doctor pointed and tried to stop a bit, "recognise him?"

"No," Jack claimed as looked as the man was now facing away from them and showing some tattoos of symbols.

"I've seen writing like that in the TARDIS," Martha claimed as she looked at them.

"He's grown and died his hair, and a beard, so typical of him, wearing contacts to change his eyes and he's masking his telepathic signature, but that song's a dead give away, not to mention the identity tattoos telling me who he is." The Doctor explained. "Doesn't want to be recognised, probably has had too much coke."

"It's not..." Sarah trailed off and looked at the Doctor.

"The bartender apologises but it seems the pipes got mixed up for diet and regular coke," Jack explained.

"Probably been drinking to concentrate on whatever it was he was scheming," the Doctor added.

"But what is he singing?" Martha asked.

"Well he was singing a rather funny song we made up when we where kids about our parents, some of the school bullies and my older brother... now he's just singing the lion king song circle of life, in Gallifreyian." He looked to Sarah, "Can I borrow your camera?"

"Sure, but why do you want my camera? Shouldn't we do something before he sobers up?"

"That's exactly why I want your camera for when he sobers up." The Doctor took the proffered camera and went up to the dance floor, and took a few pictures.

The Master continued to sing,

_"Well I woke up today,  
And your on the other side,  
Our time will never come again,  
But if you can still dream,  
Close your eyes and it will seem,  
That you can see me now and then."_

Well that was until the flash from the camera startled him, "THETA! Wat ya doin' takin' picturesh! Com on join in! Shhow theshe shtupid apesh how te party"

"Oh come on you know I hate that nickname," the Doctor grumbled.

"Haha well that's the fun ishin't it, ushe shtupid nicknamesh from collage," he laughed then took the camera and gave it to a nearby person and flung his arm around the doctor, "here you, take a picture!" The Doctor played along and flung his arm over the master's shoulder and posed for a picture, and let him prattle on. "I mean I wash shcheming a good one to kill all'f you for revenge, and was takin' a little shomethin' to help, but then shomone shpoiled my cleaver plan by mixing up the shoda pipes at the bar."

"Always helps to take a little something," The Doctor replied. "Come on lets get you somewhere comfortable to sober up."

The Master hugged the doctor tightly as he was lead of the dance floor, "I love you bro," he stated drunkenly.

"Yea I'll remember that next time you try to kill me."

He then pushed off the doctor and looked at him fiercely, "YOU STARTED IT!!"

"How did I start it?!" The Doctor argued back, the effects of the diet coke starting to set in.

"You killed her!"

"I did not kill her!"

"Yes you did! She wouldn't have ever been there in the first place if it wasn't for you!" The master claimed tears coming to his eyes.

"I didn't make anyone go anywhere! SHE wanted to go, sure I may have recommended her for the program, because SHE asked ME to. AND that WASN'T up to ME for the selection! I was rather junior after all!"

"You save people! You save everyone! But you didn't save her!" The Master shouted and shoved the doctor in the chest.

The Doctor swallowed a lump, "Dam it Koshieshi, I wanted to take her place, I'd have done anything to have back then. I may have helped everyone get out, but she was the real hero, gave her life to hold back the radiation." The Doctor ended and shoved him back.

"You don't know what it's like to loose someone you love, so don't talk about it like that."

"Yes I do! I lost the one person I've ever truly loved, while you where hiding as a human. My Rose, my true soul mate, she was the Bad Wolf. So much for happy ever after! She's lost, where I can't get to her, she's in a parallel universe and the gateways have closed. My hearts ache, I cry when I think about her, I could be vengeful, but she wouldn't want me to be, and neither would Karriena want you to be."

By now they where both fallen over sitting up on the ground sobbing, no fight left in them. The Brigadier arrived with a platoon of unit solders and had heard the whole thing, not that anyone in the room could fail to hear it. "Take the Master away have him locked up, and take the Doctor as well until he sobers up. Make sure they are in separate cells."

"I'll see to it personally sir," Benton replied and helped the doctor up. "Sorry about this Doc, but at the moment you could hurt yourself or someone else. We'll get you sobered up."


End file.
